Silicon Valley’s wealthy scramble for San Francisco’s luxury condos

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The Rincon Towers dominate the skyline in San Francisco, Calif., Monday, April 7, 2014. Rincon 2, still under construction, will initially be offered as apartments but is expected to convert to condominiums later. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

The Infinity condominium complex peeks over the top of an Embarcadero office building in downtown San Francisco, Calif., Monday, April 7, 2014. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

“While the state attracts an outsize portion of entrepreneurs and (venture capital) financing, there are flies in the tanning lotion,” writes Chief Executive magazine on California’s business climate. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group file)

SAN FRANCISCO — Affluent buyers from Silicon Valley have been scooping up luxury condos here, looking for places where they can crash after a late night at work, a dinner party or an outing to the opera.

Considered a bit stodgy in years past by the tech elite, San Francisco has changed dramatically in recent years and become an alluring tech and cultural center that’s exerting a powerful pull on affluent Silicon Valley residents.

“We’re at the beginning of some interesting market dynamics,” said David Barca of Pacific Union in Menlo Park. “San Francisco has come alive.”

The real estate information service DataQuick reported that the number of condos sold for $1.5 million or more to people with permanent addresses in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties rose to 30 last year, up from five in 2009. The increase reflects a trend among affluent buyers from the Peninsula and Silicon Valley, said DataQuick’s Andrew LePage.

Techies are not the only ones. Sotheby’s International Realty’s 2013 report on luxury condo sales in San Francisco said that sales of $1.5 million or more were up 19.2 percent last year from 2012. In addition to what the report described as “newly minted” Silicon Valley media execs quietly acquiring properties, Sotheby’s said San Francisco is attractive to international buyers and empty-nesters who are downsizing.

“They only want good views and they only want the best,” according to Sotheby’s agent Gregg Lynn, who said the most sought-after condos already have buyers. “There’s not much of it to begin with, so they’re fighting it out with limited inventory.”

Lynn said he has clients “who come up every time there are new listings to aggressively tour them. They have a place in Palo Alto, their kids are making a decision about where to go to college, and the parents are thinking about getting a place in the city and spending more time here.”

In the feverish competition, condos often are sold before they hit the market.

Literary agent and philanthropist Jillian Manus, whose home is in Atherton, in February bought a floor in the prestigious 1001 California Ave. Beaux-Arts building atop Nob Hill, where venture capitalist Tim Draper also has a condo. It never officially hit the market, she said. She declined to reveal the purchase price. With all but one of her four children out of the nest, Manus said she finally felt free to revive her true “city mouse” nature and move at least part-time to San Francisco.

“I have many friends on the Peninsula who have places in San Francisco,” she said. “We all know and enjoy it.”

Manus said she eventually may make it her permanent home, “maybe when my son goes to college.” Her other three children are already out on their own, including a daughter who lives in San Francisco.

“I was raised in London and in New York City, and so I have the heart of a city mouse,” she said. “My maternal mother mouse felt it was better to raise my children in the suburbs. But now, three are gone, one still home. I’m newly divorced, and I’m going back to where my heart is, which has always been in the city.”

The top target of South Bay buyers is south of Market Street where several new condo towers, including the Millennium Tower, are located, according to DataQuick. Atherton resident Chris Kelly, the former Facebook privacy attorney, bought a condo there last year.

Bryant Kowalczyk of SF Luxury Realty said many of his clients are from Atherton, Hillsborough, Los Gatos and Los Altos. “It’s a residence in lieu of a hotel. They have all their stuff there, their clothes are where they left them. They know the doorman. They know where to get their car to head for the airport. It hits to the affluent lifestyle, and there’s definitely a demand for it.”

Not captured in DataQuick’s numbers is another cohort of retired baby boomers and empty nesters who are trading their suburban estates for luxury condominiums in the city, and tech types who already live in the city and are cashing in stock and want to move up.

Sarah Elder of Coldwell Banker in Menlo Park said that quite a few empty-nesters are buying condos in San Francisco to have a place to crash after a late dinner or concert.

“What they’re looking for is a more interesting place to live,” she said. Eventually, some sell their suburban homes and move to the city, so there are periods of overlapping ownership, she said.

An Atherton woman who asked not to be named said she and her retired husband bought a condo second home at the Millennium Tower three years ago. “We go up to the symphony all the time,” she said, “plus I do ACT (American Conservatory Theater) and the Berkeley Rep and I thought it would be nice to have a condo up there.

“I usually plan a really long walk in the city — half a day. I go from coffee place to coffee place, discovering new neighborhoods. Every now and then I’ll have a slumber party with the grandchildren. In the morning, we get out and start walking. We’re half an hour (walking) from the Exploratorium and everything they have up there for kids.”

A series of reports this year by researchers and media have drawn attention to the loose movement and its propagation on social media. In April, an advocacy group called the Tech Transparency Project warned that Boogaloo followers were discussing taking up arms while promoting protests to "liberate" states from coronavirus restrictions.